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My best culture win was with the Incans (On Highland admittedly, so plenty of hills/mountains) Odd thing was, I hadn't planned it to be a culture victory and hadn't done anything to majorly increase my culture before about turn 150. I had stayed at a reasonable pace with culture, but nothing spectacular as you'd want in a cultura game.

I think the secret to my success was that my (few) cities had a load of food. My Cap was at 41 pop by my win and my second/third city weren't far off. This was mostly due to a huge amount of terrace farms. Of course lots of food = room for specialists and production = faster gold/culture buildings = lots of culture.

Highland maps, yeah, they will be completely tailor made for the Inca, whatever you want to do.

It might also be nice to try Rome of Aztecs for culture. Rome going wide. I'm always reading you should stay small for amassing culture, but I have my doubts. Culture cost is of course rising when going wide, but so is your ability to gather it, especially playing a civ like Rome.
Has anyone got any experiences with that, perhaps?

I thoroughly enjoy the Aztecs for culture. If you either play aggressively and amass puppet cities, or have warmonger neighbors and fight lots of defensive wars, the culture per kill will really add up.

IMHO there are quite a few civs that are good for cultural victories, even though all of them can potentially achieve one. I'll divide them into tiers, though other posters are free to criticize or even switch around tiers and civs.

Tier 1:
These civs are perfectly made for cultural victories, and can win a game with relative ease -India
Their ability improves the happiness in tall civs, pretty much forcing you to take no more than 4 cities. This, combined with the tradition policy tree, prepares you to play a small empire with a huge population. The higher happiness goes well with the Forbidden City and Piety tree-Siam
Father governs children is a great ability for a cultural victory. As you will most likely be playing a tall empire, you'll need some help in certain areas. You'll need a strong army to defend your borders, lots of food to help your population grow and of course culture. Now isn't it convenient that all city states either give you soldiers, food or culture? Even better, the last two are doubled! Combine this with the wat (which is both a scientific and cultural building) and the patronage tree (especially scholasticism) and you'll be able to keep your science up to date without heavily investing in it.-Egypt:
Wonder builders, wonder builders, wonder builders. This gives you a nice building on the production speed of wonders, which also stacks with the tradition tree and marble. Found your capital next to a source of wonder and watch yourself spam wonder after wonder after wonder. The UB is pretty cool too, giving you some extra happiness which goes great with the piety tree.

Tier 2:
These civs aren't hard coded to go for a cultural victory, but offer some boons you can use nonetheless.-Aztecs:
These guys sacrifice the hearts of their enemies to their cruel gods, giving them extra culture for each unit destroyed. This just begs to be combined with the honor tree, which as a finisher gives you gold for each destroyed unit. This may not seem like a lot, but if you amass a large army and conquer your foes, this will add up pretty quickly. This is not a tier 1 civ because it helps you more to get in some extra culture for a domination victory than it really helps a truly dedicated cultural victory.-Arabia:
The bazaar and their UA guarantee that you'll always have some money or resources to use as bargaining chips in the diplomatic part of the game. If you don't make a lot of enemies (which often involves keeping your empire tall, a plus for victory games) you can earn a lot of money through trade, which you can invest in cultural city states and/or rushbuying cultural buildings. This can be combined with the patronage tree and eventually the opener of the commerce tree if you have a lot of customs houses near your capital. This is not tier 1 because, while extra gold is useful, it can be used for many other things and doesn't give you a real flat bonus that helps you towards a cultural victory.-Greece:
The Hellenic League ability makes your friendship with the city states increase faster and decrease slower, which saves you quite some cash when dealing with cultural city states, and just begs to be combined with the patronage tree. However, this ability gives no real bonus for a cultural victory and can be more easily used for a diplomatic victory.-France:
I love France, I really do. +2 culture/city until steam power can be pretty awesome. Start the game by taking the tradition and liberty opener and watch your cultural policies stack up. However, France is not a tier 1 civ because its UA works better the larger your empire is, you'll have to go wide instead of tall. I beleive its UA is best used to compensate for cultural loss rather than really boost a cultural victory.

Tier 3:
These civs have no bonus that aids you towards a cultural victory whatsoever and will give you quite a challenge.-Everybody else:
This includes the Songhai because while an upkeep free temple is pretty nice, it hardly helps you towards a cultural victory.

india has hardly any direct benefit for a culture game. they're hardly worthy of a "tier 1"

songhai is better than france not because mpm is upkeep free, but because it has 1 more culture than a temple and gets prioritized by puppets. you can open up honor and trash camps to fund all your RA needs, as well as funding an army and when you hit chivalry you can easily take a little puppet empire to boost your economy and culture.

france's +2 culture is just nice for getting the first few policies earlier, so they do get the free settler and worker faster than other civs but that hardly compares to the multitude of bonuses for songhai.

france's +2 culture is just nice for getting the first few policies earlier, so they do get the free settler and worker faster than other civs but that hardly compares to the multitude of bonuses for songhai.

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I think its better to open with tradion than liberty. You can slow build your worker and get the free monunment with the second policy if you like. Then you can get monarchy with policy 3 as france. This allows you to sell your first few luxuries to the Ai for coin because you have a worker in the field and a king in the palace. The AI will soon love you and stay peaceful for ages, asking for friendship pacts and you will have money for CS allies or RAs if you choose.

Budweiser, you have risen to become King of the Beers. You have knowledge of Brewing, Irrigation, Mining, and Roads.

I would agree with vexing regarding Songhai and France. France's ability is geared toward a fast start and domination/science than a long term culture win.

Songhai simply gets too many advantages not to make it at least to tier II and maybe tier I. The extra culture per mpm, the extra gold from lack of upkeep, the extra gold from the barb encampments (which should NOT be under rated) all add up to some major advantages.

Polynesia on archipelago is a great culture civ. Start spamming those moai and you can easily get tiles with 4-5 culture on them, almost as much as an Great Artist - and you can start building them as soon as you research Construction.

So, apart from the roads, the aqueduct, sanitation, irrigation, medicine, education, wine, public baths and public order — what have the Romans ever done for us?